A variety of computerized devices have been developed to provide electronic information which may be useful with respect to global positioning data, tracking and identifying location of mobile objects, mapping of travel routes, or identification of local resources utilizing database(s) accessible from a single memory element or accessible from a combination of networked memory elements such as the Internet.
The global positioning system (GPS) uses a plurality of satellites to provide accurate measurements of three-dimensional position. A variety of conventional GPS devices have been developed to work with information generated by the GPS. With respect to certain conventional devices, an indicator corresponding to the location of an object ascertained by GPS can be superimposed upon a computer generated map or display to provide additional information to the user as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,392. Other types of conventional GPS devices allow the user to link certain information such as photographic images or geographic information to location coordinates as disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,471,392; 6,282,362; or 5,506,644.
A variety of mobile object navigation devices have also been developed using the GPS to provide means to track and identify the location of mobile objects such as vehicles or communication devices such as cellular telephones. Many of these conventional devices match the location of a mobile object to locations of fixed roadways and object location may be indicated on road map data stored in a memory as described for example by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,270,937; 5,270,937; 5,115,399; 5,189,430; 5,274,387; or 5,270,937; WIPO publications such as WO 01/94882; and other published patent specifications such as EP 1 118 837; or EP 0775891.
Certain mobile object navigation devices further provide route determination, route calculation, route planning, or route construction features such as those disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,926,336; 5,168,452; 5,170,353; 5,041,983; 4,937,753; 4,984,168; 5,031,104; 4,962,458; 4,954,958; 5,172,321; 5,041,983; or 6,298,303. These route determination features may also provide optimized route determination that further accounts for weather or road condition in determining route as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,926,336. Additional features have been added to certain route determination devices which provide the user with information concerning adherence to determined route as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,523,765; adherence to time schedule in implementing the determined route as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,541,845; or the relationship of the mobile object to landmark data as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,081 or to a plurality of selected location coordinates as disclosed by EP 0 775 891.
As conventional mobile object navigation technology advanced additional features have been incorporated to display additional information keyed to coordinate locations in the displayed map as disclosed by EP 0 845 124. The additional information may also be displayed in relation to the location of the moving object providing blown up portions of the displayed map as disclosed by EP 1 024 347; photographic information as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,199,014; road information as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,163; hidden features as disclosed by EP 0 802 516; perspective maps as disclosed by EP 0 841 537; rally maps as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,148,090; or other information concerning places along the route as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,282,489. As to some mobile navigation technology a preview travelogue customized to the determined route can be displayed as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,707; or United States application 2002/0038180.
Similarly, with respect to identifying local resources within computer generated maps, an area is superimposed with or overlaid with information corresponding to the location on the map providing details of hotels, restaurants, shops, or the like, as disclosed by WIPO publication WO 97/07467; or U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,343.
Web-based map navigation may further involve the user activating icons on a map image to request information concerning a location or point of interest. Internet based map navigation involves transmitting a request to a server computer via a click event of an icon on a visual display unit showing a map image. The user's intent can be to learn more about a particular point of interest. This request causes the server computer to transmit information in the form of text or numeric data, real time video images, audio files, PDF documents or in some cases still photographs. These multimedia documents are then displayed in the then current window or are displayed in a separate window on screen. After review of this information, the user would return attention to the map image on-screen to seek further information at that location or to explore another location. The geo-referenced map image can be used as the means of navigating the map space and as the method of organizing geographically related information.
For example, interactive map sites on the World Wide Web may allow the user to view maps from many locations around the world. The user may be allowed to manipulate the geographic extent of the map (for example zoom in, zoom out) or change the content of the map (for example determine what geographic information should be displayed such as roads, political boundaries, land cover, or the like) or navigate to adjacent frames located in closest proximity as described by WIPO publication WO 01/44914.
In certain internet sites a still image may have associated interactive program content for displaying further selections such as images, ordering information, or purchasing products as disclosed by WIPO publication WO 98/00976. In some instances a plurality of sub-regions which contain a plurality of pixels allow selection of a location within the image corresponding to one of the plurality of sub-regions by the user which creates a link to a corresponding embedded image as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,356,283.
While there are a variety of navigation devices available for use with mobile objects such as vehicles or cellular telephones and a variety of resource identification systems available (whether for stand alone computers or for networked computer systems), and while there is a vast commercial market for such devices, significant problems with navigation and resource identification technology remain unresolved.
A significant problem with conventional navigation devices may be that the location coordinates used to references features within a displayed image (whether displayed in three dimensions, two dimensions, or one dimension) such as a planar map do not operate in the additionally displayed information or image(s).
One aspect of this problem may be that any further information, image(s) or other view(s) must be obtained by redirecting the user back to the displayed image having embedded location coordinates to select other location coordinates or to generate additional image(s).
A second aspect of this problem may be that selection of other location coordinates has to be made without the aid of the additionally displayed information or images, or without a spatial reference system within the additionally displayed information or images. As such, if location coordinates are, for example, selected within a planar map view (looking down on the map image from an overhead vantage point) the user does not have the advantage of utilizing any other views to make navigation decisions.
Another aspect of this problem may be that the additional images or information displayed are not referenced from the same origin coordinate location. User selection of location coordinates within an image may yield a plurality of additional images each of which may represent views or other information recorded from a plurality of different origin coordinate locations. As such, the user may not be able to understand the relationship of the views to one another.
Similarly, an aspect of this problem may be that the additional images or information displayed are not spatially referenced from the selected origin coordinate location. This aspect of the problem also relates to additional images or information spatially referenced to the respective origin coordinate location using different scales. When additional images are not spatially referenced from the selected origin coordinate location direction and magnitude of vectors may not be capable of assessment or may be inaccurately assessed by the user. As such, images or information not spatially referenced from the selected coordinate location or referenced from a different coordinate location then selected can have little or no value as a navigational guide to the user.
Another aspect of this problem may be that a plurality of different locations may be referenced within or by the additional displayed image(s) or information generated upon selection of a single coordinate location (for example, locations referenced within a single image may correspond to the horizon or objects in the foreground). However, there may not be a positionable indicator in the additional images to identify the location coordinates of the various locations referenced within the image or information.
Moreover, if positionable indicators are provided within generated images or information the coordinate location indicator within the initial image may remain spatially fixed even when the positionable indicator within the additional displayed images or other information is aligned with features having different coordinate location(s).
Another aspect of this problem may be that selection of location coordinates does not allow directional bias of the additional images displayed. Typically, selection of location coordinates retrieves all the images linked to that coordinate location. No means are typically provided to select only those images having a particular vector of a selected direction or magnitude from the origin.
Still another aspect of this problem may be that a three dimensional space may be displayed as a planar representation having an X-axis and a Y-axis and additional image(s) retrieved through selection of location coordinates are displayed as a planar representation having an X-axis and a Z-axis. As such, the Y-axis within the additionally retrieved images must be generated to identify the coordinate location within the additional image on the planar representation of three dimensional space. Conversely, the Z-axis within the planar computed space must be generated to identify the location on the computed planar space to the three dimensions imputed to the additional image.
Yet a further aspect of this problem may be that the user cannot navigate from a coordinate location in a first retrieved image to a coordinate location within a second retrieved image. Navigation requires that visual information referencing destination coordinate locations within generated image(s) be spatially referenced from the selected starting location coordinates allowing the user to predetermine magnitude and direction of travel. Similarly, upon arrival at a destination coordinate location additionally retrieved images must be spatially referenced to the destination coordinates to provide visual information which conveys additional destination coordinate locations to the user to select from.
Typically, selection of location coordinates in an initial image may provide serial presentation (whether timed serial presentation or user timed serial presentation) in a predetermined order. As such, the user may be provided with a slide show of images or information related to the selected location coordinates which may be drilled down through in linear fashion.
As discussed above, displayed images or visual information generated in response to selection of location coordinates may not be spatially referenced from that selected coordinate location. As such, the user may not be able to assess what coordinate location travel starts from. Similarly, when portions of the displayed images or visual information are selectable to retrieve further images or information the user cannot or does not navigate from image to image because the images do not provide destination coordinate locations for the selectable portions of the images or visual information or does not provide an indicator within a separately spatially referenced image to indicate the coordinate location of the portion of the image or information selected. As such, the user cannot determine destination coordinate location in advance of generating images or visual information related to that portion of the image or visual information. Again, images or visual information generated at arriving to the destination coordinate location may not be spatially referenced to the destination location coordinates.
The present invention addresses each of these problems with respect to navigating computer generated space and offers a solution to conventional travel and tourism websites such as Expedia, Orbitz and others which offer the means of making travel and tourism purchases of flights, hotel accommodations, automobile rental, restaurant reservations, or the like, which only provide linear drill down within the visual information or images for travel investigation. The invention can also be applied to the fields such as real estate, education and medicine, where linking images to a computed navigation space would provide advantages for image information display and retrieval.